Advancements in integrated circuit process technology have enabled packing more circuitry or logic into the die space resulting in high integration ICs (integrated circuits). An example of a high integration IC is one in which a memory controller, a graphics processor, and multiple processing cores may be integrated in the same die.
It is a challenging task to debug and to validate a high integration IC because of low observability of internal signals at the external pins of the die. Occasionally, some internal signals can be observed via an interface between the integrated circuit and external peripherals. Such interface provides important hints about the internal signals. This enables performing of root-cause analysis of many failures in the IC. For example, the internal signals may provide an insight into the flow of processor threads and the operation of functional units within a high integration IC. The internal signals may provide failure data of the functional units such as the core area or uncore area of high integration ICs. Availability of such internal signals is useful for performing debug and validation of the high integration ICs.